Haymarket47

On the other hand the fair was my sweetener to the family to comeah well, need to find another bribe/incentive.

Sweet Child of mine - Guns n Roses

Hi folks,

 

Went to the show for a while today.  Before I comment on the show folk should be aware that the Lammas Market has started so parking may not be as easy as thought.  A couple of streets are closed, while there are some other traffic restrictions.

 

I have mixed views on the show.

 

Exhibits:

Three really good layouts: Ketton Cement; Glenfinnan; and New Westminster.  All exhibited fine modelling, simplicity, and entertainment value.  The operators on these layouts also spoke with my wife and I.  Other layouts were marred by non-communicative exhibitors, and non-moving trains.

 

I’m sorry but I beg to differ here. I had a long conversation with the chap operating “Handegg” and whilst I was rabbiting on he was continually operating the layout. He also made conversation with other visitors. I also thought the layout was of a good standard with some excellent scratch modelling. The guys on New Westminster were also very communicative and I agree re the quality of this layout - I couldn’t say the same for Glenfinnan. Ketton was very good as was the gent operating who was more than happy to answer questions and explain concepts behind its construction.

 

 

 

Traders:

With the exception of two they were much as you may expect form a small regional show.  The exceptions were the folk doing DCC sound who were extremely helpful, and one group who fought amongst themselves over prices!

 

(Disclaimer:  I have no connection with any of the above exhibitors, traders, groups, or individuals other than as a spectator or potential customer.)

 

Hoping that this is of interest/use.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

I looked at both commercial products as Alan knows and I have chosen iTrain.

I have yet to find something I need it to do that it doesn’t and the price is significantly better, plus the killer for me is the user interface. I find the iTrain interface much easier to navigate, cleaner more modern and generally more pleasant and easier to use.

Feel free to ask me any questions you have around it either here, on another thread or as PMs

Thanks, will do.

​Alan,

 

I think that it is probable that the Lenz unit is underpowered - it is described as 45VA@15v which will be around 2.3A and the voltage is also on the low side - both lower than supplied by the Z21. The Z21 voltage is likely to be around 17-18v (measured at track using True RMS meter) and it has 3.2A at the track.

 

As you can see a significant different in power of ~35w compared to ~55w, and this is probably the root cause. I suggest that you look for a PSU with more oomph, if you  are happy to use DC for the supply I would use a laptop power supply, most are rated at ~90w, and i find that they breed in my cupboards as I have several that have come from somewhere uinknown 

Hi apologies for the long gap in between posts - needless to say work and other issues got in the way of progress... Anyways to cut a long story short I raised a ticket with Digikeijs and I’m happy to say that I got a reply within a week or 2 which was very clear and echoed your comments regarding the power supply. I duly bought another psu and I have just gotten round to trying it out today and it works a treat.

 

I now have to think about the choice between Traincontroller and I- train for software...there seems to be more info generally available ie YouTube videos for TC but the price is, well, mouthwatering. I was hoping to do things such automatically trigger a whistle on a locomotive as it approached a tunnel or station. Is this possible on either of these programs or am I dreaming

 

Anyways thanks for your help with this issue.

 

Alan

Hi Iain I set it up as you suggested. It worked a treat I then reset the wait time to 200ms as you have but instead of taking the power from my Lenz TR100 transformer I used the input from the Z21 track and disconnected the Lenz unit. Low and behold it worked the servos all changed with no issues. This would be a great solution if it wasn’t for A) I’m worried about overloading the Z21 when everything else is hooked up and locos running and b) one of the attractions of the Dr 4024 is that you can program on the main but only if a separate power supply is connected!

 

So I’m not sure where I go from here. I don’t really have an in-depth knowledge to explain why it works with the power coming from the Z21 but not from the Lenz unit?

 

Thanks for taking the time to help - I’ve learned a few things today.

I think that you will need to resolve the issue without any help from Digikeijs as they almost never respond to support emails even when it is for warranty. I have simly therefore sent kit back and they have sent out replacements and never so much as a thanks you or this is what the fault was/is - even when asking for explanations.

 

Reasonable kit, at reasonable prices - but support? I wouldn't use support and Digikeijs in the same sentence

 

Back to your issue, I am sure you can put a delay into routes between switching using the Z21 app. The servos should be drawing almost no current, not compared to the slam, thud, buzz variety and you should be able to change several easily at the same time. I can change 4 IP digital at the same time with the Z21 power supply and servos take even less power.

 

EDIT - Just looked at the app and there is the ability to put a 'wait' time into the route which I interpret as the 'wait' before firing off the next bit of the route - my points switch in the order in the list and slight after each other so this default 20 is perhaps 20ms? when I am back at railway I may tray making the value much higher, 2000, and see if this is what it is and if it is ms - unless you have got there before me

Thanks for the info Iain - doesn’t sound promising on the support front - I hope I haven’t made a bad choice with these. Perhaps I should have gone with the digital cobalts but I liked the fact that the servos were small and relatively quiet. I have to say the module was easy to get started and individually the servos work fine so I’ll have a look at the setting the delay and see if that helps.

Thanks For your reply Phils. With your comments regarding power I’ve connected a Lenz TR100 which I think delivers 3 amps. I’ve got the power straight into the module. I’m not sure how much each servo draws but do you think, given the fact that the power only supplies 3 amps that this is too low?

 

I’ve opened a ticket with Digikeijs too but this is the first time I have done this so I’m not exactly sure how quick their response will be.

 

Cheers

Alan

Hi I received some Digikeijs Dr4024 servo modules from my good lady for a birthday gift. So they came all they way from USA. Finally got round to looking at these last night and all went well with the H-king 141178 analogue servos until I tried to switch them quickly or at the same time. Meltdown ensued as the led activity light was flashing like crazy and the servos doing the same. I tried setting up a route on the Z21 but this did t go too well either - this was the first time I had done a route so I may have done this wrong. Ultimately I would like to use computer control for my layout so I need reliability when throwing points and I thought these would be good. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Railcom provides the ability to get the actual loco ID from the decoder when the engine is on the main track which is useful when running using automation software as it shows that the actual loco number on the screen.

The great advantage is that you can do proper POM as you can not only write values to the decoder but you can read the values that are stored in the decoder. This allows me to fine tune loco to get best performance as I can alter the motor variables at will and see the effect of changing the motor type, emf, emf rate, frequency and a host of other variables real time.

Other manufacturers than Lenz make decoders with Railcom - Zimo and TCS being 2 that I know but I like Lenz chips and as they are all priced around the same I prefer to remain standard as I know the CVs in Lenz

Hope this helps

That’s great, thanks for the information.

Hi I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind.

 

1 Why is railcom so important?

 

2 You only use Lens Gold and Silver - does that preclude the use of sound decoders such as Esu, TTS etc?

 

Thanks

The leftmost 'grid' turns on or off the grid lines.  The next one along allows you to move a symbol (say a turnout) in either free movement or locking it to the grid.  The third one along is really weird and seems to allow you to extend a turnout with a straight or curved bit of track.  The final one looks like a save icon but it's very dark on my iPad screen.  

 

Has anyone found how to insert a text box yet?

 

To see the symbols I've had to put my iPad screen on to full brightness - which hurts my eyes if I work too long in it.

 

On transferring my layout file to the new app, some of my single slips have been converted to 3-way turnouts.

 

I'm not impressed so far and much prefer the previous app.   

 

Just my twopennerth ...

 

Cheers ...Alan

I agree about the new design. There’s a lot of light grey against dark greys/black. Also it might just be me but the text appears to be smaller too although admittedly this could be my eyesight!

Ahh, you have described exactly the same issue that I had last night!!

I was also wondering what the icons on the top left of layout screen are, the grid followed by a bit of a grid with a funny symbol and another angle with same symbol.

Any suggestions on what these icons do?

I gave up in the end and just hope that they come up with some way of creating it on a PC/MAC and importing it - would be good if Railroad/iTrain/JmRI/rocrail could export to Z21

Hi, the waffle grid toggles the grid on/off. The waffle with magnet looks like it’s a “snap to grid” feature - it’s much easier to move icons around I have found with this turned off. As for the angled icon I’ve no idea yet. However, there’s a video by Roco on you tube from this years Nurumberg and towards the end there is a young woman who does a (very) short demo and makes it look easy - perhaps she should do a longer version because intuitive it is not! I do hope they re-introduce the ability to take a photo of your layout as this was very good.

Hi just wondering how the layout was coming along?

Hi Alan,

Can't help with the BDL16s I'm afraid as I've had no experience with them. I'm using my older Lenz units and some new stuff from Dijikeijs. Their web site is definitely worth a visit https://www.digikeijs.com

Cheers ... Alan

Thanks Alan

 

Thank you for the link. As mentioned above any assistance very much appreciated. The Digikeijs unit looks quite appealing and well priced too.

 

Alan

Hi Alan,

Glad you're enjoying the layout build (albeit a bit slow in the last few months).

I'm afraid I haven't solved the booster problem, after trying for days on end with all manner of settings, I still can't stop the whole layout shutting down if one district trips out. I'm more or less resigned to fitting circuit breakers into each power district - more expense but I've tried everything else.

All of the running schedules cover more than a single district anyway, so even if a district trips out, withIn a short time another train will enter the affected district and come to a stop. Basically there's a strong likelihood that all will stop before I can address the short. It creates another problem too. That is, if a district trips out, schedules in other districts will still be started so there's a risk of trains running into the back of stopped trains. A part of the solution will involve programming 'Train Controller' to handle the schedules in a certain way when a district trips out. There are a few ways of handling this in Train Controller, such as the 'Stop all Trains' command (but then not much difference to shutting the power down to all the layout). There are other solutions which will need some deep thought.

I'll post it all up whenever I get it sorted.

 

 

 

Cheers ... Alan

Hi Alan

 

That would be great, I hope you find a solution that's not too expensive/time consuming. One thing that confuses me about the Z21 and train detection is that when using the loconet there are detectors that you can use such as the uhlenbrock but I believe, but may well be wrong, that the digitrax bdl 168 is not suitable (I liked this as it had 16 sections). I know you are using Reed switches for your layout but I was thinking of using the current detection root as my electrics aren't the best!

 

Cheers

Alan

Hello

 

I have enjoyed following the progress of your layout. One thing still intrigues me, did you ever solve your power booster issues? (Hoping I haven't missed a post)

 

Thanks for taking the time to log your adventure!

 

Alan

Hi Just wondered if anyone had news about the development or forthcoming release of this adaptor?

 

Thanks